Guttenberg Mayor Gerald Drasheff today defended the town's decision to settle a lawsuit filed against the town by a retired cop, who will receive $120,000 from the agreement.Jersey Journal File Photo

A retired Guttenberg police officer has received a $120,000 settlement from the town after he filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming town officials retaliated against him because of his union acitivities.

Former cop Carlos Zaldivar, who was also president of the local police union, claims in the suit that town officials bugged a meeting room inside the police department to “spy” on union business.

The surveillance equipment was able to transmit video and audio, and was placed without union members' knowledge in a room also used for strip searches of female prisoners, the suit claims.

Elsewhere in the suit, which was filed in March 2011, Zaldivar claims a police captain with whom he clashed threatened to “put a bullet” in him.

Zaldivar, who will receive the $120,000 from the town’s insurance company, is bound by the settlement agreement not to discuss the settlement or even acknowledge its existence, according to a copy of the pact obtained by The Jersey Journal.

Guttenberg denies all claims in the suit, notes the settlement, which was signed in mid-October by Zaldivar, his attorney and the N.J. Intergovernmental Insurance Fund.

Mayor Gerald Drasheff said the town wanted its insurance company to settle the suit to put the claims “behind us.” Drasheff said town officials don’t think they did anything wrong.

“But you never know where a jury might go on something,” he said.

Zalvidar’s attorney could not immediately be reached to comment.

Zaldivar’s suit claims that Capt. Joel Maggenheimer received promotions and favorable treatment because he advanced the town’s “political agenda and interests.”

The two cops clashed over Zaldivar’s role as union president, and at one point Maggenheimer threatened to “put a bullet in” Zaldivar, according to the suit